Interviewer: Pran, why did you stay behind when your family was evacuated just at the end of the war?
Dith Pran: Because, uh...
Interviewer: Just, “I stayed behind because...”
Dith Pran: Oh, I stayed behind because, uh, I like the news, I want to see what’s going on in my eyes, instead of just listen to the rumor or to the people, maybe some people they just get, just look at the report, and they didn’t see himself, and uh, I’m some kind of person that’s different.
Dith Pran: I like to see in front of my eyes what’s going on, what happened to Cambodia.
Interviewer: What did you think would happen? What were your expectations as the Khmer Rouge came up to Phnom Penh?
Dith Pran: Uh, first I thought that the Cambodian people, even I know they’re communists, they like socialism and communism, but I don’t think it’s it’s bad as when he came into power.
Interviewer: What did happen...how...what did you experience personally after the Khmer Rouge came into the city.
Dith Pran: Uh, in the beginning it seemed to me it they look alright, but in just only a few hours become uh nasty, crucial, bad attitude, you can see them walking around.
Dith Pran: It’s like wild peoples coming down the street, to the city.
Interviewer: What happened to you?
Dith Pran: Uh, I was arrested, and at that time, I didn’t pay attention to them, but what I care about the people who are living in hospital because the night before, uh, the Khmer Rouge came into the town, uh, there are many shelling attack.
Dith Pran: So we worry about the life of the civilian.
Dith Pran: So we know the place where we can find all these people is in hospital.
Dith Pran: And we went there to check what’s going on.
Dith Pran: How many doctor, how many nurses, and are there any doctor taking care of this wounded, all that, and after we look around, we saw not many doctors there, because they get scare about the Khmer Rouge, they worry about they get separation from their family, their home, and so they run out, go back to the home.
Dith Pran: And uh, when I get out from the building where all the wounded, all the bodies pile up, and then just a group of...
Interviewer: We have to change films.
Dith Pran: So, uh, when I came out from the building with uh, uh three, uh foreign correspondent, I mean uh two reporters and one photographer, and uh, about four or five Khmer Rouge came to us, and with the gun point, I get shot and everybody have to get their hands on their head.
Dith Pran: And they push us to the uh prisoner carrier, armor car, and put in the car, and then, first of all, they said, “We need only the foreigner.” And and the I try to get them, get in with them, and they say, “You can go out.”
Dith Pran: And I have to fight and say, “Well, these people, they cannot speak uh language, Cambodian language, oh please let me go in so I can translate to you.
Dith Pran: And he take me for a while, and then he decides let me get in.
Dith Pran: And then when I get in, all of us in there, they still, uh, uh, try to find, are you American, these people are American and that time we pretend we are French.
Dith Pran: So, from that time I talked French, (laughs) and when we are there, there are two officers, marine officers that trap, also, was there and they get so scared those people.
Dith Pran: And they talk around about twenty or thirty minutes and we all get sweat because we worry a lot about what’s going on, we don’t know, and these peoples look mean.
Dith Pran: They are young.
Dith Pran: And uh, about half an hour they unload us under the bridge, a broken bridge, and they let us sit down under the bridge.
Dith Pran: When I get out, I keep talking with the officer.
Dith Pran: I can say he’s officer because they have uh, blue point pen and we were told that way the people who have blue point pen are officers and look older, then they keep talking, explain to them we are not soldiers, and we are journalists, international journalists.
Dith Pran: We want to find out what’s going on.
Dith Pran: And we want to see you peoples coming to town.
Dith Pran: And we don’t want war, we so happy with you coming because from now on, no more war.
Dith Pran: And they really listen to me.
Dith Pran: And I explain to them that uh uh we already talk with you high officer in the Ministry of Information this morning.
Dith Pran: They say uh we were allowed to go and look around and then in two o’clock in the afternoon, you come back to the Ministry of Information and we will have a press conference for you.
Dith Pran: And I said, “You better contact your top official because we came and we walk around here is we have a permission already.” And then he listen to me.
Dith Pran: He understand.
Dith Pran: And he send some messenger go to the Ministry of Information.
Dith Pran: And I keep talking, explain to them, to show them we against the war also, and we want to tell the world that your victory is is perfect because it can stop all the war.
Dith Pran: No more killing anymore.
Dith Pran: And so on.
Dith Pran: I talk talk a lot, for several hours until the message come back, and they say it is alright, we can release you, now you can go where you want to go.
Dith Pran: And then we go straight to the Ministry of Information.
Dith Pran: At that time we get some more diplomats, French who live there, and we go to the Ministry of Information, and when we we get there, the high official there, the Khmer Rouge high official, they give a little bit of a press conference.
Dith Pran: They let us ask some question.
Dith Pran: And we, I saw the Lon Nol government people get surrender, or get arrested, they cut in one throat, including officer, uh minister, and some, all the high ranking official, about a few hundred at that time.
Dith Pran: And at that time I can speak English.
Dith Pran: I translate three languages.
Dith Pran: I was so excited.
Dith Pran: Why? Because, uh, it seemed, uh, like, uh, they respect the international law, they let the press interview, so I unbelievable, I could speak, uh uh, three language in the same time.
Dith Pran: You know, I translate from Cambodian to French and French to English.
Dith Pran: And uh, and uh, I think they was surprised.
Dith Pran: Because, why because uh it seemed like I was so excited because what I want is I want that way.
Dith Pran: I want, uh, each government, even your communists or free from the free countries.
Dith Pran: I want respect international press.
Dith Pran: I want the journalist people to see and to report the truth.
Dith Pran: So that’s uh, I’m really, but, you know, later on, I get in trouble again.
Dith Pran: We all get in trouble.
Dith Pran: After the press conference is over, I uh, get into trouble.
Dith Pran: I fell because the Khmer Rouge said, “Well, we have a place for you for all the foreign press.
Dith Pran: Sly, you can stay with all the Cambodian official in Lon Nol side.”
Dith Pran: And I say, that’s something.
Dith Pran: I don’t trust them anymore.
Dith Pran: And I said, I explained to the Khmer Rouge officer, I say, “Well, well we have a place in the Hotel La Plum, so we would like to go there because, uh, all our stuff, all our belonging in that place.
Dith Pran: And then, when we walk out, along the road, and...
Dith Pran: By the way, you can see during the press conference the Khmer Rouge soldiers, they really pay attention like we all have arms, or we have weapon.
Dith Pran: And you can feel that uh stupid.
Dith Pran: You know, you protect with uh B-40 surrounding us, but is, but they point to the outside, but is, you know we in the heart of the city, why we make so tight security like that.
Dith Pran: And we we...and then on the road you can see all the Khmer Rouge soldier are very small.
Dith Pran: And they look uh, funny faces, uh it seemed like they were puppet, really puppet.
Dith Pran: They they they did what their boss says to them.
Dith Pran: And they, it looks scary to me, and I told all the journalists, “You better walk, uh, don’t look their face, because if you look, they think we are something.
Dith Pran: They they they get angry or something.
Dith Pran: And we walk past to the hotel where we used to live, all the press used to base there with the Red Cross there.
Dith Pran: And uh for us we thought that the Red Cross is safe.
Dith Pran: Because the Red Cross, they hang all the Red Cross flag there, and they want to be like a free zone or something.
Dith Pran: But when we get to the free zone, the Khmer Rouge with loudspeaker in hand, they say no one allowed to stay in this hotel.
Dith Pran: You have to move out to the countryside, and so on.
Dith Pran: And then, now, uh, so we have, they say deadline is five o’clock.
Dith Pran: And we have about five minute.
Dith Pran: We have to rush in to the to the room and get some food.
Dith Pran: We stop because we prefer, because we understand that when the war broke through we cannot go shopping and so on.
Dith Pran: And we bring all our canned food, and pack food and then we put in our car, and we push uh, we drive slowly, and to the French Embassy, we decide.
Dith Pran: So now, the Red Cross they don’t respect.
Dith Pran: So maybe the French Embassy because the French, it seemed like they stayed neutral during the war.
Dith Pran: So we go there to the French Embassy.
Dith Pran: And when we get...
Interviewer: We just ran out of film.
Interviewer: Film is much more expensive...
Dith Pran: And uh, (clears throat) and we get to the French Embassy, and you can see in the French Embassy’s full of civilian, full of politician, full of all kind of people.
Dith Pran: So, uh, the French had to close all the gate.
Dith Pran: And they put the sign say this is the French Embassy in Cambodian.
Dith Pran: And they have the French flag, so to let the Khmer Rouge.
Dith Pran: They really respect uh, a little bit, uh at least they get more per priority.
Dith Pran: And uh, what we do, we had to climbs on the wall, uh, of the French Embassy, and go in, and uh, all the Westerner, they go in to talk with the Frenchmen, and I’m Cambodian, I have to stay on the grass for awhile, until some like midnight and then see maybe found a place in the building, so he come and told me go in.
Dith Pran: And I stayed inside.
Dith Pran: And uh, that, and then, I think two three days later, and the Khmer Rouge come.
Dith Pran: And they told the French people say uh, uh, we, uh the Cambodian people were not allowed to stay there.
Dith Pran: Only foreigners.
Dith Pran: So, uh, uh I decide to go out.
Dith Pran: Because if I hide there, they thought I’m a politician, I’m a high official.
Dith Pran: So I don’t want that way.
Dith Pran: I don’t want to take a chance on that kind of stuff.
Dith Pran: I, so, even the day they allow me to go out, so I walk out with the crowd, with all the refugees.
Dith Pran: And because it take days for the people who live in Phnom Penh to get out, because we know during the war many, many people are concentrate in this city.
Dith Pran: So it seem like it take two three days for me after the Khmer Rouge say now we don’t want you.
Dith Pran: If you there, they consider you as politician.
Dith Pran: And I don’t want to be called a politician.
Dith Pran: And I decide to walk with them, and I saw many, uh, people come out from the hospital, because they chase all the patients out from the hospital.
Dith Pran: And I know that everything is upside down right away.
Dith Pran: You never heard other people come to the power and you chase all the patients out.
Dith Pran: And you don’t care about civilian.
Dith Pran: You let the civilian walk out of town.
Dith Pran: It’s something strange.
Dith Pran: You never heard...there, it it a pink leader town.
Dith Pran: And uh, so I walk in and on the street, on the highway, its very crowded and you see, it’s you can see the kid crying, the old people get uh sick and then everybody have to sleep on the grass alongside and the Khmer Rouge just keep forcing say, “Go, go, you have to go to the countryside.”
Dith Pran: And then, on the checkpoint, about uh, I’d say it’s sixty kilometers, I get checkpoint.
Dith Pran: They check me, they ask you all your biography.
Dith Pran: And then I know is socialists or communist, they don’t like you, or big title or etiquette title.
Dith Pran: So it’s uh, I get from my head right away, I say, well, only thing you have to say is taxi driver is better.
Dith Pran: That’s low class enough.
Dith Pran: And then I keep using that word all the time, and they gave me, luckily, they gave me a pass.
Dith Pran: So I can cheat at a checkpoint.
Dith Pran: And say, “Look at, I’m already checked.
Dith Pran: I’m a real low class.” So they let me go through from one town to another town.
Dith Pran: They ask me, “Where are you going?” I say, “I’m going out of town,” because I’m told by the villagers there, they say, you don’t have to say far away.
Dith Pran: Because if you say far away, they wouldn’t let you go.
Dith Pran: So you had to go from one town to another town, and say where you going or something, just, not far away, say five or ten miles away.
Dith Pran: That’s all right.
Dith Pran: Then go, I get reach to my provincial town, provincial home, it’s not really a town, I still uh twenty five miles away from my hometowns.
Dith Pran: When I get there, the people down there, they said, “Don’t go farther there because the Khmer Rouge are very, very nasty.
Dith Pran: They, sometime they don’t ask you, they just kill you.
Dith Pran: They don’t want the people walk around there.” So I decide to look for place to live and work as other people.
Dith Pran: Uh, and uh...
Interviewer: What kind of work did you find?
Dith Pran: Uh, they they give me, in the beginning, they give me a job as a plow, you know do plows and harvesting the land, planting the rice.
Dith Pran: You see that’s the main thing.
Dith Pran: We all have to plant the rice.
Dith Pran: And uh, and then they told all the people you’re not allowed to dress colorful dress anymore, you have to dress black.
Dith Pran: And no boot, no shoes, if you have like uh, Ho Chi Minh sandals all right, or sandals okay.
Dith Pran: Or, if you don’t have, you have to walk barefoot.
Dith Pran: And I walk barefoot.
Dith Pran: I have short.
Dith Pran: And, uh, we get really humiliated by the cadre, because they don’t like to see the people they treat as very different from the people who used to live with them.
Dith Pran: But at least I’m uh, low class taxi driver for them, they think I’m low class.
Dith Pran: So they, I still get at least middle treated.
Dith Pran: And and then they keep uh uh educate us every night.
Dith Pran: You work eight hours at least, and then at night you have to sit down in the grass and listen to them.
Dith Pran: To the cadre.
Dith Pran: They say, they educate you about the policy, about from now on we have no city.
Dith Pran: The city is in the countries.
Dith Pran: And the main thing is irrigation, and agriculture, we plant rice.
Dith Pran: If we have rice, we can have everything.
Dith Pran: And um, and then uh, everything belong to the “uncle.” Uncle means the government, you know, organization, so you don’t have to worry.
Dith Pran: And everybody have a job.
Dith Pran: And you will have food from the government.
Dith Pran: The Government will give you.
Dith Pran: But they give you very little.
Dith Pran: Until sometime, you get half spoon a day.
Dith Pran: One spoon a day.
Dith Pran: So your hell get very, very big, but you cannot stay home.
Dith Pran: You get to go to work all the times.
Dith Pran: And uh, even you need a stake to walk.
Dith Pran: I have to crawl on the dike, on the you know, it’s terrible.
Dith Pran: I eat everything, when I have free time, I always look for some leaves to eat.
Dith Pran: And then I really desperate, so at that time it’s the rice.
Dith Pran: You know, I...the rice is getting seed.
Dith Pran: So, one night early when the sunset, I pretend looking for leaves and eat around and then I think maybe it’s a good chance to steal the rice.
Dith Pran: I look around, I just don’t see anything.
Dith Pran: And they hide.
Dith Pran: There’s security people that issue.
Dith Pran: They hide someplace I didn’t know.
Dith Pran: And I didn’t run and go and get it, because I was very weak.
Dith Pran: So I walk slow, slowly, with a stick.
Dith Pran: And then I pick up the rice in the middle of the field.
Dith Pran: Because I thought when I go to the middle nobody can see.
Dith Pran: After I get about one full my hands like that, I put in the pocket, because, and then two guys come, came to me with the sword and with the ax, and that time I just run like something, there’s not energy, but I run about a few meters, and I fell to the mud.
Dith Pran: And they come grab, and then grab me.
Dith Pran: And that time I thought this: my head is cut, my head is gone because they thought wouldn’t like this to me, and so on.
Dith Pran: And I thought I would die already.
Dith Pran: And then they say, okay.
Dith Pran: Come up.
Dith Pran: And I say, sorry, sorry, I’m so hungry, please don’t kill me.
Dith Pran: And then he brought me to the house.
Dith Pran: And then he tied me up.
Dith Pran: He let me stay in the house for about one hour.
Dith Pran: And then a group of the cadre...
Interviewer: How did they punish you?
Dith Pran: Well, it’s about six or seven people all are they call semi-cadre of the village, you know, the people who’re in charge of the village are semi-cadre of the Khmer Rouge.
Dith Pran: And uh, they tie my, the hand to the back.
Dith Pran: And they beat me with the stick.
Dith Pran: I don’t know what to say but it’s a long act, and with the bamboo stick they hit me.
Dith Pran: They hit me very badly until I fell down to the ground.
Dith Pran: And the, uh, they know, uh, I’m getting very, very hurt, almost unconscious.
Dith Pran: They say stop.
Dith Pran: And then, uh, they let me sit down in the ground for almost whole night.
Dith Pran: And one guy they really mad to me, they say, “Kill him.” And uh, but I pray and pray, and then there’s, thank god, another one.
Dith Pran: He know I’m a good worker.
Dith Pran: Even I was sick, I always go to work so they say, “Please save him.”
Dith Pran: You know, one of the group, the member is say, “have to save this man.
Dith Pran: We reeducate him again.
Dith Pran: He be a good worker.” So I felt it was all right.
Dith Pran: And then I, I think around 2 a.m.
Dith Pran: or something, they get me stay, stay with the guard around me, they decide free me.
Dith Pran: Go back to the house.
Dith Pran: But I was really, uh, sick.
Dith Pran: And uh, now I talk about the...the killing in my hometown is...they kill all the soldier, even your private soldier, the teachers, and all the educate peoples, nurses, all, every everybody.
Dith Pran: Even the former soldier, the ex-soldier.
Dith Pran: He used to work with the French during the French colony, and he joined with the Khmer Rouge in 1970, also, they don’t trust these people at all.
Dith Pran: In 1977, they really completely clean all those people.
Dith Pran: They joined with them, they work with them for year during the war, they really doesn’t care.
Dith Pran: They say, they don’t trust educate people.
Dith Pran: And uh, even their own people, their own cadre, their comrade, when they think they’re not good, they arrest them, nobody know what’s going on.
Dith Pran: They just arrest and beat them along the road, and disappear.
Dith Pran: Uh, and uh,
Interviewer: Did you actually witness people being treated...
Dith Pran: Yeah, I uh, really seen what they did to and I know, I saw.
Dith Pran: They beat these people.
Dith Pran: But I didn’t see they kill, because they really once in a while they kill in front of you, that’s it.
Dith Pran: The rest just brought into the headquarters, and disappear.
Dith Pran: Uh, and uh, they really, the life of these people are different from.
Dith Pran: In the speeches, always say everybody are equal.
Dith Pran: But it’s not true.
Dith Pran: When you are cadre or semi-cadre, you get good clothes, even a black pajama, but you get, well, call it the black pajama.
Dith Pran: They get black sandal, they get watches.
Dith Pran: And uh, they get plenty of food.
Dith Pran: They can eat three times a day, and we have not enough food.
Dith Pran: We don’t have rice, we have a groove rice, a soup, rice soup, and that’s it.
Dith Pran: And not enough.
Dith Pran: They measure you a bowl.
Dith Pran: That’s it.
Dith Pran: And so everybody have to go look around for all kind of things to eat, like I used to tell you, you wouldn’t believe it, tamarind fruit is very, very sour in our country.
Dith Pran: We used to put a little bit in the soup.
Dith Pran: We know as sour soup.
Dith Pran: And during the starvation, you eat that is very sweet, very sweet and tasty.
Dith Pran: I eat a lot.
Dith Pran: And that time they send me to watch the cattle.
Dith Pran: And every time when I don’t see them, I climb on them, and watch.
Dith Pran: You have to, you have to watch the cadre, and you have to watch the cow, because if the cattle eat the rice, you be a traitor again.
Dith Pran: You ruin a community belonging, you...
Dith Pran: So...you have to be, and you angry, so everything is moving at the same time.
Dith Pran: And uh…
Interviewer: How did you escape Cambodia?
Dith Pran: Uh, I escape in 1979 when the Vietnamese and the puppets, the uh, uh, invade Cambodia, on, in January 1979.
Dith Pran: Because the Vietnam are also communists and Pol Pot are also communist is also communist.
Dith Pran: But I don’t know why they don’t get along.
Dith Pran: I think because the Khmer Rouge are too much pro one side.
Dith Pran: This is talk about politic a little bit.
Dith Pran: I’m not a politician, I don’t like politicking either.
Dith Pran: Uh, I think the Vietnamese, they don’t want to go close to Chinese.
Dith Pran: And the Pol Pot are very close to Chinese.
Dith Pran: It’s some kind of uh….
Interviewer: Excuse me.
Interviewer: Pardon me.
Dith Pran: So, uh, I escaped because when the Vietnamese came and liberate my town, and I run, I walk to my hometown, and then I work with the Vietnamese about six month.
Dith Pran: And then I think that nothing’s changed, except no more killing like before.
Dith Pran: But uh, the freedom, the people have no liberty.
Dith Pran: Uh, also because, uh, my family was outside of the country, so I decide to come out, uh, through the jungle, to the fields, takes me uh, three nights and four days from the countryside.
Dith Pran: But first I escaped from one town to another town, and uh, and then I get to uh Thailand, in 1979.
Dith Pran: And I want to go back, my experience in, when the Vietnamese came.
Dith Pran: I saw with my eyes that they are many, many killing fields.
Dith Pran: It’s not a brand new killing field.
Dith Pran: So to show that is a real killing by the Khmer Rouge, I went there to the jungles, and I saw all bone in water wells.
Dith Pran: So you can prove that if the Vietnamese killed them, they had to be fresh.
Dith Pran: And there’s all the skulls and the bones piled up, some in the wells.
Dith Pran: And then I saw the the new government with the Khmer Rouge try to show the journalist who are like from the eastern country and I went with them, because at that time I was mayor of the city.
Dith Pran: I was elected.
Dith Pran: And I occupy the dam and I go, you go to the field, this fresh field.
Dith Pran: And then you can see tall grass, very green, and then, they dig in front of me, in front of journalist, you will see in one hours, you count hundred skull easily.
Dith Pran: So, and then not only one place.
Dith Pran: You go to other place.
Dith Pran: It’s fresh land, not soft.
Dith Pran: It’s soft, you think it’s some kind of a fade.
Dith Pran: But I saw that it’s that’s why many, many people disappear during almost four years of the Khmer Rouge uh, control Cambodia.
Dith Pran: So it’s uh, you know like me, and I talk about if the people uh, uh, some people had died from the starvation is a lot also.
Dith Pran: Maybe a little kid and old people.
Dith Pran: Because, like my father, I was told by my mother that...